Flood-based farming / spate irrigation workshop 30-31 October 2013 Dire International Hotel Objectives:
Take stock of existing knowledge and experiences about flood-based farming in Ethiopia
Assess the potential socio-economic impacts of flood-based farming;
Identify the priority challenges in Spate Irrigation Development and suggest the way forward:
Identify possible research questions to advance this field
Identify possible communication and capacity development areas and activities to ensure implementation of existing good practices
Agenda:
Wednesday 30 October
09.00: Welcome by Simon Langan, formal opening by Adugna Gebessa (Oromia Irrigation Enterprise), introduction of participants, objectives and agenda
Process: participants to be split geographically, by type of institution and finally mixing to meet people they don't know...
10.00: Background presentations
IWMI presentation about spate irrigation challenges and opportunities (20')
Presentation Meta Meta about potential, development challenges and status of spate irrigation in Ethiopia (15')
Plenary discussion / Q&A (15')
10.50: Break and group photo
11.20:
Presentation 1 IWMI (about impact on poverty)
Presentation 2 Mekelle University (about impact on nutrition)
After these presentations, 10' to note down key points / questions around the table, on a flipchart sheet (to feed back in discussion later)
Discussion in plenary (15')
Presentation Haramaya University #1 (15')
Presentation Haramaya University #2 (15')
After these presentations, 10' to note
Discussion in plenary (15')
Same process as above
13.00: Lunch
14.00 Presentations about regional experiences:
Presentation about experiences from Oromia (15')
Presentation about experiences from Amhara (15')
Reflections around the table (10')
Presentation about experiences from Tigray (15')
Presentation EECMY (15')
Plenary discussion 'what do these experiences tell us?' (20')
15.30: Break
16.00: World café (all tables working on same questions, groups re-forming):
What is the potential of flood-based farming and what needs to happen to reach maximum potential?
How to build upon existing experiences and knowledge to inform others (how to avoid reinventing the wheel) i.e. who should spread information about existing practices (for awareness-raising AND for capacity development), with whom and how?
What do we need to know more of - what research questions should we come up with to be able to implement flood-based agriculture more effectively?
17.00: Presentation of world café results.
17.30: Final informations/instructions before field trip (as groups) + forming 4 groups of 8-9 (including resource persons [site persons + presenters] for each group).
What went well and what went wrong? How can we improve on: technical (scheme) failure, institutional failure, capacity failure? What was unexpected (what struck you about this scheme?)
1 PPT sheet as report (max. 2 slides and 4' of presentation max)
17.40: Close
Thursday 31 October
08.00: Departure for the field trip (Boru Dodota scheme)
12.30: Return from field trip and Lunch
Each of the 6 groups of 7-9 people has elected one person to present for 5 minutes max, on one flipchart + soft copy available
14.30: Presentations by groups
3-5' presentation per group and at the end 15' of discussion before break
15.00: Break
15.30: Group work: Self-selected groups working on a) research, b) dissemination c) capacity development and d) other issues: present a plan that could tackle opportunities and challenges - building upon the previous day's world café work, enriched with field visit insights...
Presentation either as PPT or as Flipchart and once again softcopy available
5' presentation + 5' discussion
17.15: Close, next steps and thank you's
Next steps (proceedings to publish etc.)
And simple evaluation with smiley on process / content and pop-corn picking participants' views about what they learned/did in this workshop and what they aim to do next?
Close by Teklu
Official agenda (to share with participants)
Wednesday 30 October
09.00: Welcome by Simon Langan, formal opening by Adugna Gebessa (Oromia Irrigation Enterprise), introduction of participants, objectives and agenda
10.00: Background presentations:
IWMI presentation about spate irrigation challenges and opportunities
Presentation Meta Meta about potential, development challenges and status of spate irrigation in Ethiopia
Plenary discussion / questions and answers
10.45: Break and group photo
11.15: Spate irrigation impact presentations
Presentation IWMI
Presentation Mekelle University
Plenary discussion about impact of spate irrigation
12.10: Thematic presentations
Presentation Haramaya University #1
Presentation Haramaya University #2
Plenary discussion about thematic presentations
13.00: Lunch
14.00 Regional experiences' presentations:
Presentation about experiences from Oromia
Presentation about experiences from Amhara
Reflections around the table
Presentation about experiences from Tigray
Presentation EECMY
Plenary discussion about: 'what these experiences tell us?' (20')
15.30: Break
16.00: Group discussion:
What is the potential of flood-based farming and what needs to happen to reach maximum potential?
How to avoid reinventing the wheel around flood-based farming?
What additional research may we need to implement flood-based agriculture more effectively?
17.00: Brief group work presentations
17.15: Group instructions for the field trip and group forming
17.30: Close
Thursday 31 October
08.00: Departure for the Boru Dodota scheme field trip
12.30: Return from field trip and Lunch
14.30: Field trip finding presentations by groups
15.00: Break
15.30: Group work planning: How to implement flood-based irrigation more effectively through better: a) research, b) dissemination c) capacity development and d) other inputs:
16.30: Group work presentations and discussion
17.15: Next steps, evaluation
17.30: Workshop close
Notes of the event
Q&A morning
Flood calibration needs daily data
SWAT model fills gaps to predict seasonal factors
How you transfer parameters from one area to the next? --> This is done across areas with similar climatic conditions etc. and we must define hydrological response definitions for both watersheds. For different parameters there are different methods to share... We can use the same slope, soil and land use etc. Boru Dodota is in Keleta watershed but it is drained at the getting point. Within Keleta watershed...
Shape : 30m i.e. it's the same shape.
No gauge to predict sediment yield
Availability of input data: I can use data from the Ministry and meteorol
Practical recommendations: We can use this model to estimate the flood by using input data and get closer data to reality.
Estimation of peak load: the program was developed by UNESCO-IHE and they wanted to test the applicability of that program. The person who worked on this was familiar with this system but there are various alternative methods.
This academic exercise was useful also for the design (i.e. what design parameters to take into account)... This work was done to do physical measurements.
Flow velocity: we used 2 different equations, one sensitive and the other not so much so we compared the 2 methods etc. It's true that the flow could be improved but
Feedback from morning sessions on sheets Table 1:
How to deal with flow variability?
Flood forecasting
Climate change (variability)
Training & capacity building (farmers, designers, local implementers)
Data generation and management
Table 2:
In high rainfall areas with 1000 mm, how feasible is spate irrigation?
Instead of saying spate potential, is it better to say flood potential?
A bit surprising: why do you calibrate the SWAT model on a monthly basis while we are dealing on daily basis of flooding
How do you transfer the run off from the gauged catchment to the ungauged one?
How do you prepare the database of SWAT model because it needs a lot of parameters?
Table 3:
Definitions should be clear for all
Problems are addressed well but need clear recommendations for future practice
Datas used should be recent data and need to be updated
Questions:
Q to Tigray: Why do you fail to show us the links with conventional irrigation systems
A: We have many boreholes. Spate irrigation is much more easily managed. Farmers are going to get their livelihood. They stick on immediate issues
Q: Disseminating manuals etc. but why didn’t we do it today?
A: We don’t have concrete solutions, we are still learning. Now we’re looking at problems in different contexts. Let’s mainstream. What we’ve seen from past experience is that
Q to Oromia: We can’t predict benefits of spate – why not?
A: We can predict some rates (%) for document. If not for food security it’s not advisable to work on spate irrigation. If we were rich we would construct a dam but it’s better.
Q to Oromia: Agronomic issues of spate irrigation vs. ?? management: siltation and sedimentation that is deposited on farm fields. E.g. with Teff, how do you combine siltation
A: It’s not recommended but farmers do it e.g. at Boru Dodota.
Suggestion for all of us: externalize criteria for modern spate irrigation schemes
Shall we integrate with watershed management?
Q to Oromia: You have a lot of experience and you are leading on water resource projects… Why don’t you have a special institution that controls/manages every spate activity?
A: From Amhara: there is a dev’t project and an institute that is working on these issues in ?? valley. We are trying to interlink interprovincial authorities with spate irrigation. If we get a flood we’ll use the flood and if not we’ll use groundwater. One will supplement the other. Recharge is a critical value. If we don’t manage the catchment properly we will only be able to use run-off so we have to use the latter efficiently with Spate irrigation. We have to look into integration with groundwater.
- Spate irrigation is part of irrigation and in the new organization for Oromia, spate irrigation is part of irrigation under a new organizational framework. In that office we have established one deputy for scheme management which works on large and small scales separately. Spate is the issue of many countries. There is no university giving a specialization and we’ve tried to develop curriculum at universities. People only have knowledge of conventional schemes. All the designs we have are conventional.
Q: Spate irrigation should be connected to watershed development plans so presenters, how can we combine?
A:
Teklu: These were the points we had in mind when coming up with this workshop. So what should be criteria for designing spate? What capacity do we have etc.
Feedback from the afternoon sessions on the sheets:
Table 1:
How farmers' water use conflict be a potential challenge in spate irrigation?
In design of spate irrigation, do wee divert all or part of the flood?
Spate irrigation always has to do with sediments so how is siltation taken as a challenge for spate irrigation development?
Spate irrigation development should be connecting with catchment (watershed) development. But this was not seen in the presentation. How do you see it?
Table 2:
Why can't we predict the return of SI projects? We can estimate it because of dam with 75% dependable rainfall with optimal considerations.
Table 3:
What slope range is optimal at headworks and command area? (0.5-1.5% < x)
Are the costs comparable to perennial systems? Oromia = 500 USD / hour
How to optimize flood timing? Receding flows carry less sediment load
Is it feasible to manage extreme peak flows? Maybe good to bypass them.
World cafe discussions
What is the potential of flood-based farming and what needs to happen to reach maximum potential?
High rainfalls in high altitude areas provide adequate flood. Surrounding areas (lowlands) have limited rainfall. We have land and water and we have encouraging experiences. Population growth: people migrate from highlands to lowlands.So there is potential for arid and semi-arid areas to use flood-based farming (rangeland, food...)
What does potential mean? Availability of floods is not enough. The flood must be needed, the area must be suitable so there is ample potential for flood-based farming.
Spate irrigation has potential to reduce food security: flood-based vs. food secure.
60% of the country is spate potential area (low areas) - current experience and area covered under spate irrigation is promising
There is potential with traditional schemes: what can we learn from them and integrate into modern schemes?
What needs to be done?
Make wise selection of crops and irrigation
Infrastructures are lacking
Decrease contamination and sedimentation of lakes and reservoirs
Health issues are a concern
How to engage communities and increase their ownership in scheme development? Community-led interventions must be practiced.
Indigenous knowledge can be supplemented by scientific knowledge on e.g. construction of infrastructures.
Institutional issues have to be considered
To avoid conflicts and discouragements, we need think about water users who don't get enough water and how to compensate them?
Planning and implementation must be well considered
The government has to commit to flood-based farming, it's an opportunityTo optimize/maximize, align with watershed management and have proper policies and management on spate irrigation
Address constraints of utilisation and go for interventions such as knowledge/awareness around importance of SI, learning from best practice
Training, capacity building
Spate irrigation seems to be very inexpensive - see paper ??? with figures about cost of spate irrigation projects. Quick calculations are around 7000 ETB/Ha, which is much cheaper than conventional irrigation.
How to avoid reinventing the wheel around flood-based farming?
The practice is already going on but how to reactivate and make it efficient?
We have to proceed with an evaluation of past and ongoing practices
Draw lessons on successes and failures
Promote and modernize indigenous knowledge on spate irrigation and identify knowledge gaps. Modernisation must be based on local and indigenous knowledge
In the design process, designers should spend more time in the field to take knowledge from farmers
Learn about scheme management and how it's organised + engage communities around this
Settlements in many river basins show that people will go down to areas where spate irrigation is most suitable so use of SI will increase. We have to pay attention to hydrological responses and information (design parameters e.g. runoff characteristics to catchment condition etc.)
Catchment conditions are forcing the shift in settlement from highlands to lowlands so SI will be mandatory.
Piloting of projects (by integrating research outputs) before embarking on large scale implementation
Identify capacity gaps and fill them
Develop guidelines/manuals on SI
Integrate SI in universities
Training of experts and farmers on spate irrigation scheme management
Policy issues have to be addressed
A regulatory body must be in place - e.g. sometimes a governmental institution can support this so as to follow up / train, monitor and control
Gender equity - learn from experiences in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen
Proper documentation and dissemination of experiences and information that can be passed on
Replicate this experience now e.g. experience-sharing workshops - create a forum for such experience sharing which will help learn lessons from others, either successes or failures and either nationally or internationally: networking on spate irrigation development
There is the Spate Irrigation Network which brings together all kinds of specialists - everyone is encouraged to look at the webpage, the guidelines etc.
The standardization of the Spate Irrigation network has to happen
What additional research may we need to implement flood-based agriculture more effectively?
Transferability of best practices that are accepted e.g. in Konso to other areas could be evaluated
Evaluation of SI practices, identification of causes for succes and failures
Evaluation of existing knowledge in communities on SI
Determining Potential of SI in a country and carrying out a baseline on SI to find out where we are now
Most important bottleneck is siltation and sedimentation management. How to avoid it?
Flood water application: once diverted, how can we manage this over farmlands (shallow / deep soils)
Identification of catchment areas in terms of effective flood production etc.
Hydrology: characteristics of runoff, flood forecasting, identification of effective runoff contributing area etc.
Linking spate irrigation with early maturing crop-maturing or drought-resistant species
Agronomy and type of crops and varieties
Exploring appropriate scheme management
Design of spate irrigation schemes particularly on hydrology, water use rights and water applications
How to implement SI for different water uses and which techniques to implement?
How to optimize design given the nature of flows?
Reevaluation of existing designs and future trends
Studies on land suitability, spate agronomy (spate vs. crops) and socio-economic (equity, conflict, cooperation) e.g. watershed management / What are we lacking around governance?
Opposition between watershed management/treatment and SI (if you treat watershed you have less runoff which is detrimental to spate irrigation)
Social aspects of SI e.g. water rights, water sharing, regulation of water in SI systems
Research on uncertainties (to enable predictions) e.g. climate change, rainfall intensity, population growth etc.
Feedback from the field trip
What went well:
Despite no ownership the main canal is intact
Offtake canals were good
Infrastructure is relatively good and silt deposition has improved
What didn’t go well:
The main structure is functioning well but the project had undermined the community role so it’s not taking its role. There should be a better role distribution
The first period was given to site selection but re: the main canal.
During the design/construction the organization didn’t recommend sustaimability of the structure so there’s no owner.
They should alleviate intensive labour work
A lot of siltation
The design needs to be improved
But ownership issues are very common in Ethiopia. What could we do to improve this?
At site level to use the base flow there’s no problem but to use SI the canal has to be cleaned to absorb 6m3 as in the design. The … sluice is not working very well + additional silt excluder has to be added.
Irrigable area is very large and suitable but the water is not there; there’s a huge land mass to irrigate. Try to connect the river to already established systems to provide huge opportunities for the area to get developed.
The river may lead to another conflict – diverting another river (catchment transfer) so it seems better to strengthen this scheme through better scheme management.
The water is now managed. We talked to a farmer who told us about his going in the middle of the night to divert water. Upstream people control the water and downstream folks get a chance only in the night – this needs an intervention. Another thing is the catchment management. The catchment is degraded, so watershed management should be an intervention so that spate develops into another form of irrigation.
Surprising: I was expecting disastrous consequences from the design but farmers are looking for more improvements. What is crucial is that farmers were never trained to manage their own scheme. There must be an institutional arrangement – this needs to be considered.
30-31 October 2013
Dire International Hotel
Objectives:
Agenda:
Wednesday 30 October
Thursday 31 October
Official agenda (to share with participants)
Wednesday 30 OctoberThursday 31 October
Notes of the event
Q&A morning
Feedback from morning sessions on sheets
Table 1:
Table 2:
- In high rainfall areas with 1000 mm, how feasible is spate irrigation?
- Instead of saying spate potential, is it better to say flood potential?
- A bit surprising: why do you calibrate the SWAT model on a monthly basis while we are dealing on daily basis of flooding
- How do you transfer the run off from the gauged catchment to the ungauged one?
- How do you prepare the database of SWAT model because it needs a lot of parameters?
Table 3:Questions:
- Q to Tigray: Why do you fail to show us the links with conventional irrigation systems
- A: We have many boreholes. Spate irrigation is much more easily managed. Farmers are going to get their livelihood. They stick on immediate issues
- Q: Disseminating manuals etc. but why didn’t we do it today?
- A: We don’t have concrete solutions, we are still learning. Now we’re looking at problems in different contexts. Let’s mainstream. What we’ve seen from past experience is that
- Q to Oromia: We can’t predict benefits of spate – why not?
- A: We can predict some rates (%) for document. If not for food security it’s not advisable to work on spate irrigation. If we were rich we would construct a dam but it’s better.
- Q to Oromia: Agronomic issues of spate irrigation vs. ?? management: siltation and sedimentation that is deposited on farm fields. E.g. with Teff, how do you combine siltation
- A: It’s not recommended but farmers do it e.g. at Boru Dodota.
- Suggestion for all of us: externalize criteria for modern spate irrigation schemes
- Shall we integrate with watershed management?
- Q to Oromia: You have a lot of experience and you are leading on water resource projects… Why don’t you have a special institution that controls/manages every spate activity?
- A: From Amhara: there is a dev’t project and an institute that is working on these issues in ?? valley. We are trying to interlink interprovincial authorities with spate irrigation. If we get a flood we’ll use the flood and if not we’ll use groundwater. One will supplement the other. Recharge is a critical value. If we don’t manage the catchment properly we will only be able to use run-off so we have to use the latter efficiently with Spate irrigation. We have to look into integration with groundwater.
- Spate irrigation is part of irrigation and in the new organization for Oromia, spate irrigation is part of irrigation under a new organizational framework. In that office we have established one deputy for scheme management which works on large and small scales separately. Spate is the issue of many countries. There is no university giving a specialization and we’ve tried to develop curriculum at universities. People only have knowledge of conventional schemes. All the designs we have are conventional.Feedback from the afternoon sessions on the sheets:
Table 1:
- How farmers' water use conflict be a potential challenge in spate irrigation?
- In design of spate irrigation, do wee divert all or part of the flood?
- Spate irrigation always has to do with sediments so how is siltation taken as a challenge for spate irrigation development?
- Spate irrigation development should be connecting with catchment (watershed) development. But this was not seen in the presentation. How do you see it?
Table 2:- Why can't we predict the return of SI projects? We can estimate it because of dam with 75% dependable rainfall with optimal considerations.
Table 3:World cafe discussions
What is the potential of flood-based farming and what needs to happen to reach maximum potential?
How to avoid reinventing the wheel around flood-based farming?
What additional research may we need to implement flood-based agriculture more effectively?
Feedback from the field trip
What went well:
- Despite no ownership the main canal is intact
- Offtake canals were good
- Infrastructure is relatively good and silt deposition has improved
What didn’t go well:- The main structure is functioning well but the project had undermined the community role so it’s not taking its role. There should be a better role distribution
- The first period was given to site selection but re: the main canal.
- During the design/construction the organization didn’t recommend sustaimability of the structure so there’s no owner.
- They should alleviate intensive labour work
- A lot of siltation
- The design needs to be improved
But ownership issues are very common in Ethiopia.What could we do to improve this?
- At site level to use the base flow there’s no problem but to use SI the canal has to be cleaned to absorb 6m3 as in the design. The … sluice is not working very well + additional silt excluder has to be added.
- Irrigable area is very large and suitable but the water is not there; there’s a huge land mass to irrigate. Try to connect the river to already established systems to provide huge opportunities for the area to get developed.
- The river may lead to another conflict – diverting another river (catchment transfer) so it seems better to strengthen this scheme through better scheme management.
- The water is now managed. We talked to a farmer who told us about his going in the middle of the night to divert water. Upstream people control the water and downstream folks get a chance only in the night – this needs an intervention. Another thing is the catchment management. The catchment is degraded, so watershed management should be an intervention so that spate develops into another form of irrigation.
Surprising: I was expecting disastrous consequences from the design but farmers are looking for more improvements. What is crucial is that farmers were never trained to manage their own scheme. There must be an institutional arrangement – this needs to be considered.